Showing papers in "Journal of the American Academy of Religion in 2003"

The Making of Modern “Mysticism”

Abstract: Mysticism, as a category long prominent in the study of religion, has been widely critiqued over the last quarter century for its essentialist illusions. That critical literature, while based on historicist convictions, has rarely extended such historical vision to the liberal religious culture that produced the modern construct. This article bridges the vast gap between Michel de Certeau's genealogy of "mysticism" focused on seventeenthcentury France and the accounts of those scholars who focus on the boom of academic studies at the turn of the twentieth century. It presents the emergence of "mysticism" as a category in Anglo-American discourse from its development during the English Enlightenment within critiques of false religion to its Romantic remaking within Transcendentalist Unitarian circles in the United States. In taking seriously the religious and intellectual worlds that produced William James's theorizing, the article opens wider perspectives on why the construct came to carry so much weight in both the study and the practice of religion.

Faith and Empire: Conflicting Visions of Religion in a Late Reformation Controversy—The Augsburg Interim and Its Opponents, 1548–50

Abstract: The battle of Muhlberg (23 April 1547) began a brief period of dominance of German affairs by Emperor Charles V. In the wake of his victory, Charles, a zealous Catholic, attempted to undo the effects of the Reformation and bring the church under his control by engineering the Augsburg interim. This was nominally a Catholic-Protestant compromise, but it was seen by most Protestants as an attempt to lead the free German church back into Catholic and Latin servitude. This article examines the differing visions of religion held by the Interim's supporters and opponents. For the interim, religion centers on sacerdotal authority and social order, whereas for the Lutherans who opposed it religion concerned faith, salvation, and conscience. The struggle over religion was also a struggle over the shape of German society, as emperor, princes, and urban leaders attempted to realize their vivions of religious pratice and meaning.

History and Gratitude in Theravāda Buddhism

Abstract: An inspection of several Buddhist histories (or vamsas) written in the Sinhala language in medieval Sri Lanka encourages us to reevaluate the use of emotions in religious contexts and why people write narratives of the past. This article suggests that the attention given to emotions such as gratitude in Theravada Buddhist vamsas signals that historical narratives were composed and disseminated to orient the emotional lives of devotees toward the past and to give rise to moral communities in the present. Such texts led "virtuous persons" to understand themselves and their capacity to attain desired religious goals as being enabled by people and events from the past. The Sinhala varmsas that describe how the Buddha's relics were brought to Sri Lanka illustrate that emotions can be cultural products that are instilled by historical narratives to accomplish a variety of ethical, social, and soteriological ends.

The Aesthetics of Excess

Abstract: motivations. Specifically, I consider emotions that, in their extremity, may not at first appear to play a significant role in motivating moral action and yet are evoked frequently in Buddhist narrative: fear, horror, grief, and awe. I argue that the texts suggest a "moral naturalism" whereby the external world is structured morally. Feelings of fear and horror, insofar as they take their cues from such a moral structure, can provide trustworthy moral guides for those sensitive to them.

Religion and Other Products of Empire

Abstract: This article examines briefly ancient and modern examples of three different patterns of relations between empire and religion: (a) imperial elites'construction of subject peoples' religions, (b) subjected peoples' revival of their own traditional ways of life in resistance to imperial rule, and (c) the development of religious practices that constitute imperial power relations. Thes cases raise key issues for religious and biblical studies, such as the modern western reduction of religion to individual belief, the relation of the religions and the secular, and particularly the relation of religion and power.

Byzantium, Orthodoxy, and Democracy

Abstract: This article addresses the question of the compatibility between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and modern understandings of democracy. Recent images in the press suggest at worst hostility toward democracy and at best ambivalence on the part of the Orthodox churches. The source of this hostility and ambivalence lies in part with Orthodoxy's Byzantine heritage. The influence of this heritage is especially evident in a recent debate between two contemporary Orthodox ethicists, Stanley Harakas and Vigen Guroian, over the proper role of the Orthodox church in relation to the American democratic state. Through an analysis of this debate this article argues that there does not exist a clash of civilizations between Orthodoxy and democracy and that Orthodox support of communitarian forms of democracy is warranted on inner theological grounds. This article also intends to offer a concrete reponse to an inevitable question regarding the relation of religion and empire: Are religious traditions whose own thinking on political philosophy was shaped within the context of an emprie inherently incompaticle with modern democratic principles of church-state separation, multiculturalism, and religious pluralism?

The Erotics of Practice: Objects and Agency in Buddhist Avadāna Literature

Abstract: The collection of Indian Buddhist narratives known as the Divyävadäna posits that there is a class of objects whose sight leads to the arising of prasäda in the viewer and that this mental state of prasäda leads the viewer to make an offering. In this article, I first describe the mechanics of prasäda—why it arises, in whom it arises, and the consequences of it arousal—as well as the various \"agents of prasäda\" (präsädika) and the power they exert when seen. In discussing the field of effects of präsädika objects, I consider Catherine MacKinnon's work on pornography to help clarify the politics of this configuration ofprasäda as well as its ethical implications. Last, I discuss the aesthetics of prasäda and what this suggests about the function of Buddhist narratives known as avadarías.

Religious Experience and the Divisible Self: William James (and Frederic Myers) as Theorist(s) of Religion

Abstract: Journal of the American Academy of Religion June 2003, Vol. 71, No. 2, pp. 303–326 © 2003 The American Academy of Religion Scholars have understood William James’s unattributed reference to a discovery made in 1886, which he described as “the most important step forward in psychology since [he had] been a student of that science,” as a reference to the British psychical researcher Frederic Myers, rather than, as I argue, the French psychologist Pierre Janet. Correctly understood, this discovery illuminates the experimental (Janet) and theoretical (Myers) underpinnings of The Varieties of Religious Experience, surfaces the comparative method and the experimentally based theory of the divisible self that informed James’s work, and clarifies James’s efforts to explain how persons might subjectively experience a presence that they take to be an external power, when such was not necessarily the case. Approaching the Varieties in this fashion allows us to specify more clearly the kinds of experience that most interested James. This, in turn, circumscribes his explanation of religious experience and, in my view, makes it more compelling.

Ancestors before Us: Manifestations of Tradition in a Hawaiian Dispute

Abstract: Is it sacred or secular? Was it used for ritual purposes in the past? How would it be used for ritual purposes in the present? Such are the questions raised by a recent dispute over a Hawaiian object (ki'i). The dispute erupted when a group of Hawaiian representatives discovered that the Roger Williams Museum intended to sell the object in question. Hawaiians sought repatriation of the ki'i under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), and the dispute was heard twice by the NAGPRA Review Committee. This article explores the dispute and analyzes discourses of "tradition" utilized by both parties. Primary attention is paid to Hawaiians' claims, particularly the way in which they linked aspects of cultural history to present conflicts concerning land issues and sovereignty. Engaging recent literature concerning the theorization of tradition in the Pacific, the article concludes by arguing that Hawaiian claims about the ki'i, though seemingly spurious at points, express the suppleness of tradition in ways that move beyond the mere invention of tradition, provoking us to contemplate traditional sources of novelty.

The Fruits of Paradox: On the Religious Architecture of the Buddha's Life Story

Abstract: Traditional accounts of the life story of the Buddha contain an apparent paradox: at birth he is virtually omniscient, but by adolescence when he encounters the famous “four sights”—an old man, an ill man, a corpse, and a mendicant—he does not know how to understand them. This article proposes one possible religious meaning visible within this paradox, relating to differing motivations which encourage believers both to begin Buddhist practice, since they share the ignorance the Buddha felt as a young man, and to continue it despite the vast distance to its final goal, since it was only after a long series of rebirths that the Buddha himself could attain liberation. ONE OF THE MANY memorable utterances of Inspector Clouseau, the flapping but unflappable investigator of Pink Panther fame, is his deadpan declaration: “I know everything—yet I know nothing.” It may seem an association worthy of Clouseau himself to connect his oxymoronic announcement to the life story of the Buddha, Gautama Siddhartha. 1 Still, among those who have encountered almost any version of the Buddha’s traditional

Religion and Empire: Belief and Identity among African Indians of Karnataka, South India

Abstract: The article examines the identity formation and religious, cultural, and political contributions of African Indians (Habshis/Siddis) in the Indian subcontinent. It begins by providing a historical background of the shifting roles and alliances African Indians have forged as political and military players from the 14th century to the present. The article focuses on the fourteen thousant present-day African Indians in Karnataka, South India, and explores their social location, religions and cultural contributions. African Indians' changing status, identity, and contributions are mediated throught their political action within the framework of their historic displacement from Africa, and experience they share with other diasporic Africans on a global level. The article further addresses how today's Karnataka African Indians living in Yellapur, Hubli, and Mundgod subdistricts (taluks), though no longer key players in the political, cultural, and religious scene, do marshal both African and Indian resources to foster and articulate their own agency.

Relative, Contingent, Determined: The Category 'History'and Its Methodological Dilemma

Abstract: HANS KIPPENBERG CONCLUDES the introduction to the American edition of his new book with the following sentences: “The book aims at reintroducing the category of ‘history’ into religious studies. This seems necessary. Recently two volumes appeared identifying crucial notions on religious studies. Examining the concepts in the two volumes, I was struck by the absence of both ‘history’ and ‘tradition’ from each; ironically, only ‘modernity’ has survived. This seems to be a good starting point for the present study” (2002: xii). Indeed it is. And it might be a key not only to Kippenberg’s study but also to a more general analysis of contemporary discourse on “religions” and their “history.” Those general—and I hasten to admit, quite basic—considerations are the issue of my essay. I will pick up the question raised by Kippenberg, why the category “history” has largely disappeared from scholarly theorizing on religion, especially in U.S. publications. There must be good reasons for this, I assume, and some of them have to do with recent reflections on the contingency of religious studies and—more generally—the relativity of scholarly meanings, which leave no room for long-lasting tradition or history beyond social constructions that change from day to day (as is

Zhuangzi's Religious Ethics

Abstract: This article considers the ethics of the early Chinese thinker Zhuangzi. In both the Chinese tradition and among western sinologists the consensus is that Zhuangzi offers little in regard to ethics. It is often suggested that Zhuangzi relies on a kind of aesthetic perception to do the right thing in changing situations. The article argues, on the contrary, that Zhuangzi presents us with a genuinely religious ethics that is comparable to that of the Gospels. Furthermore, it is shown that Zhuangzi has his own moral imperative and that several important features of his ethics are comparable to Kant's moral picture. The article first explains Zhuangzi's critique of Traditionalist (Confucian) moralism; then it shows how Zhuangzi transcends the aesthetic point of view; finally, it compares Zhuangzi and Kant.

There is data for religion

Abstract: THE MOST FREQUENTLY CITED sentence in theoretical/methodological discussions in the field of religious studies during the last two decades has only six words: "There is no data for religion" (Smith: xi). This is cited so much that one would be tempted to say that Smith's dictum fulfills now the role once fulfilled by Rudolf Otto's notorious advice to those who are not able to remember, or who never have had, an episode of religious excitation (religiose Erregtheit): namely, not to continue reading his book on the holy. But just as one ought to be distrustful of pronouncements based on emotions, one ought to be skeptical toward those predicated on the scholar's sovereign theoretical agency. Having begun to address this issue elsewhere I will merely point out that if there were no data for religion, then there would be data neither for its history nor, a fortiori, for a second-order reflection on the writing of such history, namely, historiography.2 If there were no data, then it would have been impossible to have a book entitled Discovering Religious History in the Modern Age, for instead of using discovering in the title Hans Kippenberg would have had to write inventing. We are fortunate, though, that the German title, Die Entdeckung der Religionsgeschichte, survived fashions and was translated almost literally into Englishalmost literally because, in an apparent concession to the Zeitgeist, discovering, the inevitable gerund, replaced the elegant, old-fashioned simplicity of the original title, The Discovery (Die Entdeckung). Was

Response: Constructing and Deconstructing Empires

Abstract: This response to articles by Richard Horsley, Nathan Rein, Aristotle Papanikolaou, and Pashington Obeng takes a skeptical stance toward aspects of the religion and empire theme that they explore. It finds that the latter three make useful empirical contributions but that those findings are not easily generalized. Horsley's article, which govers the collective publication of the four articles, is sufficiently theory laden and polemical to raise more questions than it answers. There is a need for scholars to think more deeply about religion and empire, but the ways to do so are insufficiently illustrated in the four articles at hand.

Desire and Anathema: Mimetic Rivalry in Defense of Plenitude

Abstract: Rene Girard argues that human desire based on a fundamental experience of lack leads inevitably to mimetic rivalry and violence. In response, both secular and theological thinkers have tried to articulate modes of desire based on plenitude rather than lack. This article compares efforts by James Hans (from a secular perspective) and John Milbank (from a theological perspective) to define modes of desire based on fullness. While I affirm their objective, the article explores how arguments in support of desire based on plenitude get implicated in mimetic rivalry. I use political theorist William Connolly to trace connections between the fullness of desire and the urge to anathematize, rather than oppose, a rival position. I argue that affirmations of desire based on fullness must remain alert to the emergence of rivalry and violence in their course. WE DESIRE BEFORE we know what we want. Yet what we want is of great consequence. In Violence and the Sacred Rene Girard develops a systematic account of the connections among desire, rivalry, and violence. We are subject to intense desires, without knowing what we want, according to Girard, because what we want is being. Desire expresses our lack of being, a fundamental yet amorphous lack. We look around and see others who seem to have being, and so we desire to be like them. We orient our desires according to prestigious models, such as parents, teachers, or leaders. We want to become like them by wanting what they want and by acquiring what they have. This means, according to Girard, that human desires inevitably converge on the same objects. Rivalry is the consequence of mimetic desire, which leads to socially endemic envy, frustration, and violence (1977: 145–149).

Science and a personal conception of God: a critical response to Gordon D. Kaufman

Abstract: In a recent essay in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (69/2, 2001) Gordon D. Kaufman has argued that if one accepts the scientific account of the emergence of life, one cannot any lo ...

"The Sphinx must solve her own riddle": Emerson, secrecy, and the self-reflexive method

Abstract: This article offers a fresh approach to the religious thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson, exploring (1) the particular conception of secrecy in connection with which he understands the human spiritual predicament and (2) his response to this predicament by means of a self-reflexive turn in his writing-a procedure designed to undermine quests for truth elsewhere and so to restore the self to the wholeness implicit in its initial conditions. The operation of this method will be traced through a number of Emerson's major works, including the second "Nature" (from Essays: Second Series), "History," and the poem "The Sphinx." Along the way, Emerson's thought will be discussed in relation to the history of Emerson criticism, alternative views of secrecy in religion, and the theory and practice of religious nondualism, to which Emerson's intellectual project bears considerable resemblance.

Rejoinder: Thoughts from the Belly of the Beast

Abstract: As the study of religion expands its repertoire of approaches and perspectives, issues and cases of religion in relation to the workings and effects of empire can be included in the agenda. A complex critical analysis is necessary to discern the complex and sometimes hidden relations between religion and empire.

Good wives, family protectors: writing Jain laywomen's memorials.

Abstract: While Jain religious models of virtue articulate the renouncer as the focus of virtue, Jains likewise participate in the western Indian discourse of women's virtue, which centers around the dedicated wife (pativratā) and the virtuous woman (satī). The parole of virtue in Jain dedicatory memorials can be seen as explicitly gendered; lay Jains are represented as the great patron or the dedicated wife. For Jain laymen who cannot be represented as great patrons, there is no langue to use to represent them. For Jain laywomen, the discourse of satīs is invoked to frame the woman as virtuous and worthy of celebration-even in those memorials where women participate in the great patron model. These memorials are a place to examine how the telling of women's lives serves as a testing ground for competing ideologies and illustrates the patterns of negotiation between ideologies based on religious identity and gender.